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Energy Tomorrow is brought to you by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America's oil and natural gas industry. Our more than 500 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry.

The Gulf Coast area impacted by Hurricane-Tropical Storm Harvey faces a long recovery road, with thousands displaced and so many neighborhoods and workplaces inaccessible due to floodwaters. Humanitarian relief efforts are under way, but there’s much work to be done. While Americans across the country are concerned about the human toll left by Harvey, we’re particularly mindful of thousands of colleagues in the natural gas and oil industry who work and live in affected areas. In that light, it’s a glimmer of good news that a few of the refineries forced to shut down because of the storm are starting the complex process of restarting – six as of Thursday morning, according to the U.S. Energy Department, with a combined capacity of more than 1.2 million barrels per day or about 4.2 percent of total U.S. refining capacity.

“Star Wars” is more than entertainment and pop culture. I’d argue that the film helped hold Americans’ interest in space exploration at a time when NASA needed little bump. It offered an important, if fanciful, vision of the possibilities of space – bridging the interlude between the United States’ last manned lunar landing in December 1972 and its first space shuttle launch in April 1981. Now, let’s loop the discussion back to energy, because energy makes space flight (real and imagined) possible.

The link between hydraulic fracturing and U.S. global leadership in oil and natural gas production is direct: Without fracking, there’d be no American energy renaissance – or the array of benefits it is providing to our economy, to individual households, U.S. manufacturers and other businesses.

American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard will kick off the year’s energy policy conversation by outlining a number of top energy priorities during a speech Wednesday at API’s 2017 State of American Energy event.

Historically and culturally, Thanksgiving is this country’s calendar cue to be thankful, to be grateful, from household to household. As President Lincoln said in his 1863 proclamation creating the holiday, it’s a day to recognize the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.” This year is no different. Americans can give thanks for a number of things. The American Farm Bureau Federation tells us that the average cost of a Turkey Day feast for 10 this year is $49.87, a 24-cent decrease from last year’s average. (Alas, there’s no reported decrease in the remorse a number of us will feel from feasting a bit too much.)

Piggy-backing on the start of the Series, we’ve filled out a lineup card of our own – America’s Energy Lineup. It’s a fantastic lineup with contributors at every position – no “Who’s on First, What’s on Second” shenanigans with this group . They’re all major leaguers, a great mix of energy sources that includes reliable veterans as well as exciting up-and-comers, anchored by clutch, big-time producers in the key power spots, Nos. 3 and 4.

Bottom line: When America’s all-of-the-above energy lineup is in the field, we all win.

When approximately 4,700 delegates and alternates gather in Cleveland next week for the Republican National Convention, energy will play a major role – powering the Quicken Loans Arena, transporting delegates and support staff to and from “The Q,” running television broadcast equipment, cooking food, supporting high-tech communications and much more.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) annual energy conference is under way in Washington, D.C. Here are a few highlights from the first slate of speakers, which included John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology, and Gregory Goff, Tesoro Corporation president and CEO.

Holdren went first, saying that the driver of technology in the future will be finding solutions to what he called the energy/climate challenge:

“Without energy there is no economy, without climate there is no environment and without economy and environment there’s no well-being, there’s no civil society, there’s no personal or national security, there’s no economic growth."

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Energy Tomorrow is a project of the American Petroleum Institute – the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry – speaking for the industry to the public, Congress and the Executive Branch, state governments and the media.